obama won the election. he'll hand them a plan. he'll make some small changes. that's how congress works, of course. pass it and we'll be done. we'll go home for christmas. not so much. president obama did hand them a plan as treasury secretary tim geithner made a special trip all the way to john boehner's office on capitol hill. he delivered the plan to speaker boehner, a plan pretty much identical to the one president obama just won the election on. you might have thought that would have been leading, the problem would have been solved. not so much. >> flabbergasted. i looked at him, you can't be serious. i've just never seen anything like it. >> so when you said you wanted to be led, you just wanted a plan, that was a joke? so the white house agreed, then, no more leading, that was not what their partners in the house of representatives wanted. instead, white house and boehner entered into intense lengthy negotiations. and by the end of them they seemed really close to a deal. the white house had agreed to cut their tax ask by about 400 billion, to increase t